Let's pray. Lord, You hold in Your hands the days of all men. You are the God of angel armies. You are the Mighty One, the Holy One, the Creator, the Great I Am. Lord, You know all things. You have all wisdom. You have all power. Why? Do we struggle to follow your guidance? Why do we want to stray from such a shepherd? Lord, something in us rebels against the greatest good. I pray that you would kill that in us, Lord, put to death. that old man, that part of our flesh that wants to wander. I pray that through your word this morning, by the power of your spirit, you would move us, change us, to desire your way more. and to fulfill that greatest commandment that Sam was talking about. Love you more when we see how good your way is and what a blessed thing it is to have a shepherd who leads us. We pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. There was a reporter that was investigating the citrus industry who went into an area where this guy was sorting oranges. They were coming down a conveyor belt like the I Love Lucy scene there. And he'd take the small ones and put them in a small hole, take the big ones and put them in a big hole, and the bad ones and put them in another hole. And that was his job. He just did that all day. And this reporter was watching him perform this painfully. boring job for a while until he couldn't stand to watch anymore. And finally he just says, how do you stand this job? I mean all day long just sorting or putting oranges in holes. And the guy says, oh man, you don't know the half of it. From the time I clock in till the time I go home at night, all day long it is nothing but decisions, decisions, decisions. That little story illustrates the fact that some of us make harder decisions, some of us make easier decisions in our jobs, but all of us are just making decisions all day long, right? You just can't live without, that's what life is, you're just making decisions. And those decisions, big ones and even the little ones, determine our destiny, right? I remember back in 2000 when there was a guy in Boulder who decided to go to McDonald's for lunch. He stopped in there to get a burger. That decision cost him his life. A car crashed into the McDonald's while he was eating and killed him. See, it's not just our decisions that determine our destiny and what happens in the future. It's our decisions combined with all these unforeseen events that come out of the blue that You just couldn't see coming. So how do you make decisions that will have good outcomes when you don't know what those unforeseen things are going to be? That's a question that has captivated mankind for centuries, which is why there has always been a major market for divination. Divination is an attempt to find out what's going to happen in the future so that you can know how to make decisions so you don't run into trouble. Leo Oppenheimer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at University of Chicago has studied ancient cuneiform writings in Samaria and Assyria and Babylon and that whole area. And this is what this guy devotes his life to, is studying these things. And he said of all the ancient writings he's found, 90% of them, 90% of all the writings, secular or religious, have to do with, in some way or another, with divination. This is just the pursuit of mankind. If you can just get a little bit of inside information about what's gonna happen, then you can avoid trouble, right? You can know, if you can just see that that car is gonna crash into that McDonald's at that time, you could just get a Whopper that day, you know, go to Burger King instead. If Jeff and Lori this week would have known to just take the next exit then right now their car wouldn't look like a crushed pop can and Lori wouldn't have a broken ankle. And so throughout history people have been listening to astrologists, reading tea leaves, tarot cards, palm reading, ouija boards, crystal balls, fortune tellers, channeling, psychics, whatever they can do to somehow get some guidance so they can get a leg up on the unknown. But all of that is strictly forbidden in Scripture. It's all divination, and divination is forbidden. Deuteronomy 18, 10, "...let no one be found among you who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or a spiritist, or who consults the dead." Anyone who does these things is detestable to Yahweh. And yet, people follow after, even in our culture, where we pride ourselves on being scientific and rational and all that, this stuff still abounds. There's still a market for it, and there always will be. People will always be involved in divination because our decisions, combined with the unforeseen things that we can't see coming, determine our destiny. And so all of this gives rise to one of the most powerful appetites in the human soul. our desire for guidance from God. We learn very quickly in life, our decisions matter. And sometimes you make decisions and they have hard consequences. Sometimes long-term. And we can't even see one second into the future. We do not know what's gonna happen. We can try and predict it, but we can't know, and we can't see what factors are gonna arise. And even the things in the present, there's no way we can gather all the relevant data to help us make the best decision. It's impossible. And so we have a desperate, desperate need for guidance from someone who can see the future and who does have all the relevant data in his mind. We're in the midst of a study of the 23rd Psalm, and this psalm is just a description of several of the benefits that come from having a shepherd-sheep kind of relationship with God. If the Lord is your shepherd, you will have absolutely everything you need, everything you need to do His will and to please Him. He will supply you with everything you need. And the first thing you need is rest. And so He makes you lie down in green pastures. The next thing you need is nourishment and satisfaction for all the cravings and desires of your soul and appetites of your soul. And so He will provide you with spiritual food and drink. He will renew and restore your soul. And that's where we left off last time, right there at the beginning of verse 3. He restores my soul. The next benefit is this thing that all mankind craves, and that is guidance. Guidance. Verse 3, He guides me. He guides me. Sheep need a shepherd, right? Unlike most animals, sheep have no idea how to find food and drink for themselves. They can't do it. Other animals have this innate sense of, they can track down a water hole, even from miles away. They can figure out where the water, sheep can't do that. They can't find a pasture either. They'll stay in the same pasture. If you don't guide them somewhere else, they'll just stay there in the same pasture and eat it all the way down to the dirt and start eating the dirt. And they'll kill all the vegetation. Sheep are actually fairly intelligent animals. You may have heard sheep are really dumb. They're actually, compared to other animals, they're fairly smart animals, but they just don't have any sense of direction. For whatever reason, God made them, they can't follow, I mean, they can't figure out anything, where their home is. Sheep are one of the few animals, in fact, I read one source says they're the only animal in the world that can be totally lost within just a few miles of home. They just can't find their way. And when they're lost, they'll wander around in circles, banging and agitation and sometimes panic. And they're especially vulnerable to being led astray because they're followers. God made them to just follow. They just follow. Anyone starts moving, they'll follow. And they don't necessarily follow the smartest sheep or the wisest sheep or the oldest sheep. They just follow whatever sheep starts moving. It's like, oh, he looks like he knows where he's going, I'll follow. And that's what they do. That's us, right? That's us. God made sheep that way so we could see ourselves in the mirror. We get led astray. Somebody who has a little bit of confidence and gets up and speaks, we'll follow. We say, oh, I'll believe that. And we don't know where to go, and we don't know what's best for us, and we don't know which decisions will result in a good outcome in the future or a bad outcome in the future. We can't see. We have to be led. We are in desperate need of a shepherd to guide us through life. God created this world in such a way that navigation through life is impossible for a human being without guidance. People who don't have a shepherd-sheep kind of relationship with God just wander blindly through life. They don't know what's going to happen. They can never know for sure if they're where they're supposed to be. For all they know, they're living in the wrong place, they took the wrong job, they married the wrong person, and they don't know where they're supposed to be or where they're supposed to be going or how to get there. just flying blind through life. But if the Lord is your shepherd, none of that's true. He will feed you, and He will rest you, and He will restore you, and He will guide you. He'll guide you, He promises. And if you doubt that, just peek ahead at the end of the verse, verse three there, and see what His motivation is. Look at why He guides you. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. He does it for the sake of His, name here refers to reputation. This is for His glory, for His renown. That's why God leads you in paths of righteousness. He'll make sure and do it because His reputation is on the line. He's promised to do this. That's actually why God does everything that He does. Did you know that? The biggest favor that God can ever do for mankind is to put His glory on display, right? That's the best thing that could ever happen to us. Nothing benefits us more than that. Nothing gives us greater joy and happiness than seeing His glory. Nothing is healthier for us. Nothing profits us more than seeing the glory of God. It's the best thing that can ever happen to us. And it's not only the best thing that can ever happen to us, it's the best thing that can ever happen. The best thing that can ever occur in the universe is for God's glory to be put on display and for Him to be honored. That's the best thing. There are bad things, evil things. There are kind of indifferent things, things that are neutral. Then there are pretty good things. Then there's some really good things. Then there's some really, really, really good things. And then there's the best thing of all, and that's the glory of God being put on display. That's the best thing that can ever happen. And so it's God's highest priority. God's number one priority is to put His glory on display. Uppermost in God's affections, in His priorities, is to put His glory on display. Because it's the best thing that can ever happen. If God were to put anything else ahead of His own glory, He would be guilty of idolatry. And He's not an idolater. If God, you read in scripture again and again and again his reasons for why he does what he does, and you keep seeing this phrase, for my name's sake, for my name's sake I do it. I'm doing it for my name, and that's exactly what we see here. Why does God bother guiding us through life? What does it matter if, I mean, why does it matter if a little microbe like me gets guidance, a little speck of dust on a speck of dust in the universe gets guidance through life? Why is that important? Why would God trouble himself with that? Why is that important? It matters because God has promised to tend his sheep, and so if he doesn't, his reputation is tarnished and his glory is diminished. And that would be the worst possible thing that could happen, and God'll never let that happen. So, his main concern is his own glory. And if that, if you were brought up in the self-esteem church culture, where God saves you because of how important you are, this might be a disappointment to hear this, that God cares mostly about his own glory. But it shouldn't be a disappointment. It really ought to be a huge encouragement because if God has tied your well-being to his name, that just elevated your well-being to the highest priority in God's priority list. The highest, right? It's gonna be absolutely certain that it's gonna happen. If doing something good for you meant God had to take a break from glorifying his own name, then that would be way down low on his priority list. But it doesn't mean that. The way God glorifies His name is by benefiting you. And so that your best interest and His glory are tied together, you can bank on the fact it's gonna happen. That's why it's so encouraging every time we read these, for my name's sake. Because it means God's functioning as shepherd, a good shepherd, isn't dependent on me being a good sheep. Isn't that great news? In fact, the whole reason why I need him to be a good shepherd is because I'm such a bad sheep. So often. I need someone who can restore a wandering sheep because I wander. And I need someone, I need to be protected from all the dangers that I subject myself to. And I need someone to make me lie down in green pastures and rest when I'm so uptight I can't even make myself rest on my own. He remains a good shepherd when I'm such a lousy sheep because His good shepherding is for the sake of His name. So, if He guides us for the sake of His fame and His name and His renown, let's make His guidance famous. Right? Let's do it. Let's talk about it. A lot. If that's the whole point of it, what a crime against God's name it would be if He guided me and it didn't result in Him being glorified and honored and His name being magnified. If I shut my mouth and I fail to speak excitedly and joyfully around other people about how God has faithfully guided me in my life, what reason does He have to continue to guide me? Because if the whole purpose is for his name and it's not doing anything for his name, why would he have a reason to continue to do it? So let's make his guiding hand famous. Let's publish it. Let's talk about it. It's worth talking about. The other day, Rudy came by. He made an appointment with me and drove all the way over here just to spend an hour with me to tell me two stories about how God guided him. One was through an amazing business success. The other was through a disastrous business failure and both of them Incredibly encouraging stories about God's guiding hand in a way that God leads us and guides us through through life It was one of the most profitable hours. I spent all week because at the end God was more glorious and more powerful more beautiful in my eyes and If God guides us for the sake of his reputation, shouldn't we be telling stories like that to build his reputation in each other's eyes? Otherwise, how is it going to have any impact on his reputation? So, David tells us the fact that God guides us, and then he tells us why God guides us, for his name's sake. But there's one more thing he wants us to know. Where God guides us. You know, if you walk up to somebody and just say, guide me, they would just say, well, where? I mean, if you just come up to someone on the street and say, I want you to be my guide, guide me. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? I mean, you want to go guidance to, like, the Pepsi Center? Or you want guidance on the best investments, the best stocks to buy? Or you need guidance on how to impress a girl? I mean, what kind of guidance do you want? Guidance only has meaning if there's an intended destination or purpose, right? So the next time you ask God for guidance, you're praying, God, please guide me, give me some guidance, show me, give me wisdom. If a voice came back from heaven and said, guidance, where? What's your goal? What would you say? What would your answer be? If you're trying to decide, well, should I buy this house or that house? Should I take this job or that job? Should I, and you're praying for guidance, what outcome are you, if God answers the prayer, what will the answer B, I mean, what outcome are you hoping for? What are you looking for? Guidance? Where? Is your goal to pick the option that'll result in you getting the best financial situation? Is that what you want guidance to? Or the option that'll involve the least amount of trouble? Or the option that will result in the most comfort in your life? Most of the time, when we pray for guidance, we don't explicitly identify what our goal actually is, right? We don't say, guide me to, we just say, give me guidance. And we don't give any conscious thought to it, but I think if we really drilled down into our hearts and found out what it really is we want, so often, if we're honest, we'd have to admit it boils down to either money or comfort, right? That's what we're seeking guidance for. God guide me into the decision that will result in the most pleasant outcome or the most financially beneficial outcome. And if that's you, and you've been wondering, why isn't God answering my prayers for guidance? It may be because God never promised to guide you into paths of money. He never promised to guide you into paths of comfort and ease. What kind of guidance does God promise here? Verse three, He guides me in paths of what? Righteousness. Righteousness. Now that just refers to right living. Doing what's right. Living in a way that pleases God, that showcases His glory, that brings Him honor. Doing things that please Him. Obeying His commands. Loving your wife. Honoring your husband. Obeying your parents. Serving the saints of God. Enduring suffering and persecution and injustice without getting angry. Being patient. Considering others more important than yourselves. humility, kindness, peace, joy, faithfulness, truthfulness, self-control, faith, purity, godly speech, generosity, humility, wisdom, all those things, those are the paths of righteousness. That's where God will guide you and that's the only kind of guidance that he's promising in this verse. He hasn't promised to guide you into the best financial situation or the most optimal situation for your health or the most comfortable outcome. Just promise to guide you into paths of righteousness for His namesake. And that is why the world prefers divination above guidance. Because divination promises to just show me what's going to happen in the future so that I can look and see and then I can make whatever decision is best for accomplishing my agenda. Guidance from God doesn't even show me the future at all. Have you noticed that? When you ask for guidance, He doesn't show you what's going to happen. He just points you in the direction of His agenda. And that may or may not match up with your agenda. That's why the world's not interested in guidance from God. If you say, God, which one of these jobs should I take? What that prayer should mean is, which job will give me the greatest opportunity to bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ? Which job will bring me in paths of righteousness? Guide me to that job, God, even if it's the harder one, even if it's the lower paying one. If you're trying to decide where to live and you pray for guidance, that prayer for guidance should mean, God, of these two housing options that I got before me, which one would result in more righteousness, ultimately? Guide me to that one. If you ask God to lead you to the right spouse, what are you praying? What are you asking? Are you asking for the spouse that's gonna serve you and love you the best? Or are you asking for the spouse that will result in the most righteousness? What if you say, God, guide me to the right spouse? And God says, okay, here. Here's a spouse who will give you lots of opportunities for patience and long-suffering and selfless love and you'll get tons of practice at forgiveness and humility and all that. Is that an answer to your prayers? He guides us in paths of righteousness. He hasn't promised to guide us anywhere else. The only prayer for guidance that He's promised to answer here is the prayer, Lord, lead me in the paths of greater righteousness. And that's a marvelous truth. The fact that He has promised to do that, to answer that prayer, is a marvelous truth. Because you know what that means? It means There's always a path of righteousness for you. There's never a time when you can't know which way to go. There's never a moment when all your options are all sinful. Never. That will not happen to you as a believer. You never have to pick from the lesser of two evils, ever. that's important information for some of you who are prone to self-condemnation. Because your tendency is to just assume pretty much everything you do is sinful, right? You just, whatever you do, oh, I'm sure it was sinful. And you're constantly apologizing for things and you're constantly thinking, and you just think God is just disappointed with you 24-7. He's always disappointed because whatever you do, oh yeah, it was sinful, I'm such a wretch, I'm so bad, and I'm so... And if you try to pin the person down on what did you do wrong? What else could you have done? They'll say, hmm, I don't know, any other option would have been worse. If that's the case, then the one you chose was not sinful because there's always a path of righteousness. Always. You need to understand that God would never, ever put you in a position where you had to choose a sin. Ever. He leads us in paths of righteousness, which means the best path available to you right now is a righteous path, and you don't have to feel guilty about it. There's never a moment when all your paths are unrighteous. 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. He'll never put you in a position where you have to sin, ever. He guides us in paths of righteousness. All right, so we've seen that God guides us and why God guides us and where God guides us. But most of us have one more burning question about guidance. How? How do you find it? How does God guide you? What method does He use? How do you know which way God is pointing? If you've got a big decision and you pray, God, God, guide me here, show me the best path to take, how do you know when that prayer is answered? It's important that we know the answer to that question because The way a lot of Christians go about seeking God's guidance is really just a form of Christianized superstition. They use methods that are not taught in Scripture. Instead of using a crystal ball or astrology or a Ouija board or something like that, they'll just use a Christianized version of those things, like Bible roulette. You know what that is? You just flop your Bible open and point, and that's God's Word for you. even if it's just totally out of context. So you're praying, God, I gotta make a decision, my friends want me to go skiing with them. Should I go skiing this weekend or should I stay home? What should I do? God, give me some guidance. And so you flop your Bible open and you point and you're just like, oh, Job 38.22, have you seen the storehouses of the snow? Bingo, there's my answer. I guess God is telling me, time to go skiing. And what they do is they'll turn the Bible into a book of magic. They'll use God's Holy Word in a way that's detestable to God. In other cases, they don't even pretend to use the Bible. There are some Christians, they won't even do that. They just interpret mental impressions as the voice of God. They get a sense, an impression, like, that's God telling me what to do. Thought comes into your mind, you assume it's God. Or another popular method for discerning God's guidance is peace. You hear this all the time. Peace. Oh, I feel a sense of peace. I know this is God's way because I just feel at peace. This thing I'm doing, I know you don't think it's right, but I'm telling you, I feel at peace. And then that's supposed to end the argument, but of course it has to be God's way. That's superstition. Superstition is when you believe something and there's no rational reason to believe it. And that's superstition, because the Bible doesn't ever promise that if you feel at peace, then that's God's will. Lots of people feel at peace when they're sinning. In fact, the Bible shows just the opposite. Jonah, what did he do? When he was running from God, God says, go that way. And Jonah goes the opposite way, and he gets on a ship, and he's running from God, doing the exact opposite of what God told him to do. He is in abject rebellion against God. He has such a deep inner peace that he's dead asleep in the boat during a storm that's sinking the ship, and they have to rouse him to wake him up. That's peace. Meanwhile, Jesus, the night before he's crucified, is he at peace? I mean, no human being has ever been more dead center in the middle of God's will than that. And yet, he's so agitated on the inside, he's sweating blood. No peace. That peace doesn't work, the peace method. Neither does the fleece method. This is another thing that sometimes people do, is they'll say, oh, I'm gonna put out a fleece. And what they mean is, they'll say, God, I'm putting out a fleece. If you do this, then you want me to do option A. If you do that, then you want me to do option B. and they'll call that putting out a fleece, and it's a reference to Judges chapter six, where Gideon put a fleece out on the ground. The problem is, that method is nothing close to what actually happened in Judges six. If you just read Judges six, what you find out, well, here's what happened in Judges six. Gideon's just minding his own business. All of a sudden, a voice comes from heaven and tells him, Gideon, go attack that giant army with just a few men. And Gideon says, okay, but before I do that, let me just, is it okay if I just verify that you're really God? How about if you do a series of miracles, just so I know for sure? And so he asks for some miracles, and God does them, and that verifies, yes, this is the voice of God. That's what putting on a fleece means. If you hear a voice, then verify that it's God by asking for some miracles. It's not a fleece if you say, God, if it rains tomorrow, then that's you telling me option A. If it doesn't rain, that's you telling me option B. That's not a fleece. A fleece is, God, if this is really your voice that I just heard, make the sun come up in the west tomorrow morning instead of the east. Then I'll know. That's a fleece. I heard one woman who said that she was trying to decide whether to take a trip, and she woke up, she's praying God, and she laid out a fleece, she said, God, just show me something, and as soon as she woke up, she looked over at her alarm clock, and it said 747. 747, voice of God, time to get on the plane. That's not a fleece. A fleece would be, Lord, if it's your will for me to go, make it like 767. You know, a miracle. Something that just doesn't... That's what happened in Judges 6. All right. So, if we want to hear from God, we're not in a position to dictate to Him how He must speak to us or how He must guide us. We need to accept whatever form of guidance He gives us. Now, does God sometimes speak in unusual ways? Sure. Yeah. Is God capable of speaking to you audibly from heaven in an audible voice? Absolutely. He can do that. He can do anything. He can send you an email if he wants. He's capable of anything. God once spoke through a donkey. But does that mean whenever you need guidance, you should go down to the barnyard? No, because, see, the issue isn't what God can do. The issue is what God has promised to do. How did he tell us to seek his guidance? If we really wanna be guided by God, we're gonna seek his guidance in the way that he taught us to seek it. And the Bible has a lot to say about how to receive guidance from God, and I'm not gonna take the time today to do a whole big biblical theology on that. I just wanna see what we can figure out from this one principle in this verse in Psalm 23. When God guides you, here's the principle, it's always down paths of righteousness, okay? That's the key thing to remember. That's the most fundamental key to receiving guidance from God, understanding that. So if you have to choose between a sinful option and a righteous option, then it's easy. You know for sure what God's guidance is, right? It's the righteous option. You say, well, okay, that's easy enough, but what about all those other decisions that don't involve a sinful option? It's just righteous option A or righteous option B. Should I go to this Bible college or that Bible college? Should I marry this Christian or that Christian? I mean, how do I decide when it's not a moral issue? And again, there's so much scripture says about that. I did a whole sermon series on that. It's titled, How to Make Wise Decisions. It's on Food for Your Soul, so you can get that. I'm not going to repeat all that now. But let's look at this one verse and see what the paths of righteousness principle has to say about that. It's important because The ordinary way that God normally guides us through life is as a result of us choosing paths of righteousness. It's from the path of righteousness that you'll be able to see His guidance. If you just have a pattern over and over saying, oh, that's the righteous path, I'll take that. Oh, okay, there's the holy path, I'll take that. This is the righteous way, I'll go that way. And this is the pattern in your life. You've established this as a pattern. When it comes to non-moral issues, you'll have better ability to discern the wise way from the perspective of the path of righteousness. It becomes more clear. Everything becomes more clear when you're on that path, even wisdom. So seeking guidance from God is not mainly a quest for messages from God. It's mainly a quest for holiness in your life. It's not so much God give me the answer as much as God keep me on the path where I'll be able to see the answer when you show it to me. Paths of righteousness are the best vantage point to spot the wisest option. You see that? When we drop down into the lowlands of sin, our vision gets clouded, immediately clouded. Most of the time, guidance is the product, not of ecstatic visions or dreams or any of that, but just of spiritual discernment. Just looking at biblical principles and discerning right from wrong. And wise from foolish. So the more we take righteous paths, what that'll do is it'll make us more alert to circumstances and more spiritually sensitive to the implications of God's word on our present circumstances. and we'll be able to make the wise choice in our current situation. In other words, walking in righteousness clears the vision. In fact, turn to Isaiah 42. Wonderful verse here on how God guides us. Very important verse. I love the way it's stated here. Isaiah 42, verse 16. God says, I will lead the blind by ways they have not known along unfamiliar paths. I will guide them. Now get this, I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. That's how God guides us. He just turns on the lights. He turns on the lights right in front of you. He guides us not by saying, choose that option or choose this option. He guides us by just turning on the lights so we can see which is the wisest option. He turns on the light so he can see wisdom. And he does that through his word properly interpreted. Psalm 119, 105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. He just shows, he just shines the light on the path. There's the next step right there. And it's wisdom that does that. You're praying and you're praying and you're asking for guidance and then all of a sudden he just moves in your mind so you can just, oh, there's the wise path. He speaks through His Word, especially when it comes to wisdom. The middle of your Bible, we call that the wisdom literature. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. That little section in there is wisdom literature, and it just gives you wisdom. It gives you the ability to spot the right path, the wiser choice, by telling you how life typically goes. And whenever you do that, by the way, that's the Holy Spirit working in you. Anytime that you can, you finally figure out the right path, it's like, oh, I can see now, there's the wise, that's the wisest course. Anytime that happens, that's the Holy Spirit that just moved inside you. That's why in Romans 8, 14, the children of God are referred to as those who are led by the Spirit of God. That's the Christian life, you're just led by the Spirit. And so when we resist the Spirit in our life, the less guidance we have. The more we resist the Spirit, the less guidance we can get. The more time I spend off the path of righteousness, the more time I sin, the more time I choose ungodly paths, the less ability I have to discern God's guidance in other areas. So the tempter comes along and he says, spend a few seconds on this lustful thought, or this angry thought, or this selfish thought, or this greedy line of thinking, or whatever. Yes, technically it's forbidden, but it's no big deal. I mean, what harm is it going to do? It's just in your brain. You're just thinking a few thoughts. I mean, and it's only going to be for a few seconds. Just for a few seconds. And then you can push it out of your mind and then pat yourself on the back for how quickly you pushed it out of your mind this time. It's just a few seconds. And so what happens? I give in, and as soon as I do it, all it takes is a few seconds for me to completely lose sight of the goodness and beauty and preferability of that righteous path. I can still see the path. It's right there. There's the righteous path, but it just doesn't look appealing to me anymore. After just a few seconds in sin, it just doesn't look appealing anymore. And so I don't want to go that way. My brain is telling me that's the best way to go, but my heart just isn't convinced. It's not interested. And so I take a few more steps away from the righteous path. And a few more, and a few more, and the more I do that, the darker my spiritual eyesight gets. And so then when I'm faced with a real hard decision, I can't see. I don't have insight. And even if I do get right back on after a few seconds, suppose I step off just for a few seconds and I get right back on. Every time I do that, I'm training my heart the wrong direction. I'm training my heart to prefer a sinful path whenever there's a temptation. And the more I train myself to do that, the more I hinder my ability to follow the shepherd in the times when I most need to follow the shepherd. in times of temptation. The more I allow my flesh to control my decision-making and my impulses, the harder it's going to be for me to be guided by God. When I used to go hunting with my dad, one of the things that amazes me about my dad is his ability to spot game. He didn't even have that good of eyesight, but he could just spot deer and elk and things, and he's got his gun, and I'm looking at him like, Where? You know, I don't see it. And all of a sudden, bam, he shoots it. I walk out, I still don't see it. I walk up, oh, there it is. He just had this ability to see, and all I could see was branches and leaves. The more skilled a hunter is, the more he can see game, where everyone else only sees branches. They just have a trained eye. And that's kind of how it is with the way God guides you. He trains your eye. Think of the deer as God's path, his guidance. And the way that God guides you is, He doesn't make the deer more visible. What he does is he trains your eyesight to be able to spot it. He's trained your eyes to spot the narrow path where everyone else can only see dead ends. But each time we step off the righteous path, we cloud that vision. Now, some of you who are sitting there, you might be seeing a major flaw in this, a major problem in what I'm saying. If God just guides us by opening our eyes to wisdom, if that's the way he does it, how is that gonna protect me from those weird, fluky, unpredictable things that you can't see them coming? I mean, if God just guides us by opening our eyes to wisdom, or just using wisdom, showing us the wise path, how is that gonna, protect me from getting hit by a car in McDonald's. Wisdom can't help me there. Wisdom can keep me from going out and driving on ice in a blizzard, maybe. But what about those times when you go out in perfectly good conditions? And you wear your seatbelt and your helmet, and you take every precaution, and you're just really super safe, and you still get T-boned by the drunk running the red light. Living by wisdom can make that sort of thing a little bit less likely, but it won't always save you from those fluky, unpredictable, unlikely things that just come out of the blue. See, I need protection from two things. I need protection from the foolish, dumb path, and wisdom can help me there. But I also need protection from the crazy, unpredictable stuff that not even wisdom can see coming. That's why people want divination. If you could just look into the crystal ball and see the drunk driver speeding through the intersection at that moment, you just avoid it, right? So why does God forbid divination? Why doesn't God lead us by means of divination? I mean, why doesn't God, when we ask for guidance, why doesn't He just give us a Christian crystal ball, you know, a nice one that He would sanction and just say, this is for me and here's the future, here's what's going to happen. Why doesn't He do that? Here's why. It's because God wants us to just trust Him with the unforeseen things. Live by wisdom, and that'll save you from unnecessary trouble, and then trust God with the rest. That's what He wants you to do. Because think about it. What if you could see the future? What if God did do that? He just showed you a movie of the future. He showed you what's gonna happen. You could look into the crystal ball. You could see the drunk driver coming. Then what? How do you know for sure it's not best for you to get run over today? How do you know? How do you know when it's time for you to die? How do you know when it's time for something hard to happen? If God just showed you the future and you were in charge, because you know sometimes suffering is good for you, right? Sometimes you need that. Sometimes you need hard things. That's part of God's plan for you. So how would you know when? Can you imagine if God put you in charge of that? of your own suffering? So you have to say, oh, I hate this, but I think it's time for me to have a busted ankle. Crack, you know? I don't know, I suppose I'm supposed to get the flu and inject yourself with the flu. I mean, that would be the worst, right? If you had to do that to yourself. You would never know. Sometimes the best thing is for you to travel right through the valley of the shadow of death, and so that's where the shepherd leads you. We're gonna see that in the next verse. You live by a crystal ball, you'd never go into that valley, never. So if we simply live by the wisdom principles in his word and just trust him with the rest, just live by wisdom, trust him with the rest, then we can rest assured that every single thing that ever happens to us is God's perfect plan for us and it's good for us. It's for our ultimate good and his highest glory. And that includes big things and little things. God cares about every single detail of your life. Everything. Even seemingly random things are under His control. Proverbs 16, 33. The lot is cast into the lap, but every decision is from Yahweh. You just roll a die and God decides what number comes up. Why? Why does God care about that? He cares about everything. And He's in control of everything. Aren't you glad He is your shepherd? Proverbs 16.9, in his heart a man plans his course, but Yahweh determines his steps. You plan something out, God decides what actually happens. Proverbs 19.21, many are the plans of a man's heart, but it is Yahweh's purpose that prevails. You've got your plan, he's got his plan, his plan wins. And you can see that. You live by wisdom the best you can. You follow God's guidance, and here's what God'll do. He'll take all your wise decisions, and all your not-so-wise decisions, and all your really dumb decisions, and all the fluky, unforeseen, weird things that happen, and He'll use all of them to bring you exactly where He wants you to be. Think about it. Just look over your life the past 10 years, or 20 years, 30 years, or however long you want to go back. And just look at the path that He's brought you on. Did you plan that out? I didn't. That's why that proverb says, who can understand His own way? Who can understand His own way? I mean, it seems like I would understand it because I was making decisions the whole time. Who can understand what happened? I mean, when I got out of high school, I didn't say, you know what, I think what I'll do, I'll go to college for one year in California, run out of money, have to come back home, spend a year at Colorado Christian, then Chicago, and then I'll get a youth pastor job and get fired after two years, and then Minnesota, then Colorado Springs, then Canyon City, then Florence, then Seminary, then Oklahoma, then Louisville, then Erie. Three, fired three times in a row, then spiritual train wreck at my last ministry, then painful recovery, and then some more seminary, and then agape. There's my plan. I didn't think any of that. My think was more like, high school, agape, kind of like that. Now I was making decisions the whole time, but someone else was master planning the whole thing. And if I would have gone my way, the straight line way, that would have never worked. Believe me, you would not want me as your pastor right out of high school, I guarantee you that. I needed every one of those twists and turns to be able to do what God's calling me to do now. So today, tonight, tomorrow, this week, as you encounter all the zigs and zags and twists and turns of God's providence in your life, all the red lights and the disrupted plans and the unexpected changes, stuff your kids do that makes you want to tear your hair, all these things. Realize that what you're experiencing right then is nothing less than the outworking of the infinite, perfect, wise mind of a loving shepherd who is guiding you through life. Right where he wants you to go. It's your shepherd who brought you here at this point in your life, and it's your shepherd who will take you to the next place where you need to be. Aren't you glad the Lord is your shepherd? You know what this does? It eliminates second-guessing in your life. You don't have to do that. People who don't have God as their shepherd, once they see how things shake out, they're just plagued with regret and waste, you know, wishing they'd taken another course. Wishing they would have done something, oh man, I took the wrong career path. If only I would have, if I married the wrong person, And in their case, they might be right. For unbelievers, they might be right. But if the Lord is your shepherd, you don't have to worry about any of that. You don't have to worry about that. You didn't marry the wrong person. You didn't take the wrong career path. Now, you might have made some really foolish decisions and ended up being, so that your path ended up being a lot bumpier than it needed to be. But bumpy or smooth, either way, the Lord is your shepherd. If the Lord is your shepherd, you can rest assured that he has been guiding you all the way along, using your dumb decisions and your smart decisions to get you exactly in the place he wants you to be. Suppose Jesus Christ, in the flesh, walked through that door right now, just came right in here, personally, and just came up here and said, hello, my name is Jesus, I am the Son of God. I came into the world to save sinners and to give them complete happiness and the fullest joy and everlasting life. By my death and resurrection, I have paid the penalty for your sin so that you could be forgiven. And by my wisdom and knowledge, I can show you how to make choices that will bring you the greatest joy and the greatest fulfillment in life. Will you trust me? What would you say? Would it be, oh, I'll take the forgiveness and the eternal life, hold the following part. I don't know if I can trust you to lead me into the path of greatest joy. I think I like my path. I think that's a little greater joy than what you can do. Can you see the folly of that? If we can trust him with our eternal well-being, can we not trust him to guide us into the very best path every moment of every day? Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your guidance. Thank you for showing us the way and being our shepherd, walking with us. Forgive us, Lord, for thinking we've got a better idea Make us sensitized, Lord, to your guidance, so that we might bring glory to your name. Guide us, and then move our hearts to publish your guidance, to talk a lot about it, so that your guidance might be famous. We pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.